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Alex Salmond risked infuriating the Churches last night by pressing ahead with an historic move to legalise gay marriage in Scotland from next year.

Although the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill will put in place protection for faith groups and Churches that disagree with the move, the Scotland for Marriage pressure group, made up largely of religious organisations, described it as “an onslaught against the family”.

The First Minister has calculated that any controversy will not impact on how Scots vote in the independence referendum, which will be held about six months after the Bill reaches the statute book

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The argument in favour of gay marriage should rest on logic, not emotion, and it is logic that underpins the SNP government’s decision to press ahead with the legislation that permits it (writes Magnus Linklater).
In the modern era it has long been accepted that gay couples have the same civil rights as heterosexuals when it comes to forming partnerships. It follows that there is no rational argument why they should not be allowed to celebrate those partnerships in church. To deny them this is to concede that nature and the law has given same-sex relationships diminished status. That, of course, is precisely the argument deployed by those who oppose gay marriage. In their view same-sex relationships can never be regarded in the same light as a "normal" marriage; they are "an offence against the family," and they undermine the traditional view of what constitutes a proper relationship. Nowhere is this more seriously embedded than in the Catholic Church which regards homosexuality as "a disorder," and is opposed to any attempt to have it recognised in a religious setting.
Most Western societies have moved on from this attitude and accept that same-sex relationships can be happy, rewarding, and deserving of the same celebration as any others. The Scottish Government, is therefore, in the centre of progressive opinion when it proposes that gay relationships can be sanctified in church. However, it recognises that opposition is not only deeply felt but central to the beliefs of some Churches and religious groups.
For this reason the legislation will require faith groups who want to conduct a gay marriage to register, and it will allow individual congregations or ministers to opt out. This seems a sensible balance to strike but it requires a commitment from supporters of gay marriage to accept the compromise rather than challenge it. Nothing could be worse for either side than to turn the arrangement into a feud, to challenge in the courts individual churches who oppose it, or to campaign against ministers who, for reasons of faith and belief, consider it wrong.
What is needed is the same rational approach that has ushered in the reform, which makes the statement issued yesterday by the Lord Advocate at best rash, at worse ill-advised. He has sought to issue some heavy-handed guidance on same-sex marriage. Opposing it is not, he says, a hate crime. Until he spoke out, no one had seriously considered it was. His statement has only served to ratchet up a debate just when it needed a calming voice.
The correct approach surely is to regard the proposed legislation as a way of recognising that relationships between gay couples can be as loving and as deserving of acceptance as those of heterosexuals.